


Say the Magic Words

by birdkeeperklink (speculating)



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Crack, Don't copy to another site, Eventual Romance, Fluff, Gift Fic, Humor, Idiots in Love, M/M, Magic Hobbits, Misuse of Frying Pans, New Solutions to Canon Problems, Quest of Erebor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:40:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28303212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speculating/pseuds/birdkeeperklink
Summary: Magic is a horrible, unreliable thing - more of a curse than a gift, really!  There's a reason no hobbit would willingly admit to having such a fickle ability.  What would happen to their reputations if the whole of Middle-earth knew?  It's unthinkable to even contemplate such a thing!Unfortunately, Bilbo's found himself on a dangerous journey where it's impossiblenotto rely on his annoyingly mystifying and inconstant gift.  What's a poor hobbit to do, but accept the situation (with a healthy helping of irritation)?
Relationships: Bilbo Baggins/Thorin Oakenshield
Comments: 31
Kudos: 384





	1. If you just can't get a fire started...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kytanna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kytanna/gifts).
  * Translation into 中文-普通话 國語 available: [时机已到（Say The Magic Words）](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28538046) by [Ursula_Wen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ursula_Wen/pseuds/Ursula_Wen)



> Merry Christmas, Kytanna!!! 🥳❤🎄 I hope you enjoy the story! It was so much fun working with your prompt! 🤗🥰
> 
> And as always, a huge thank you to navyfeather, for your help and support! I couldn't do it without you. ❤
> 
> A very merry Christmas to everyone else who reads this, too! I hope this story can help make your Christmas just that little bit merrier! 😊❤

_Everyone_ was quite miserable. There was no mistaking that! And how could they not be? They were _wet_.

That was it. That was the whole list. They were _wet_. They’d _been_ wet for days now, the formerly pretty springtime journey turned to a constant nightmare monsoon! There was no escaping it, not even to sleep. Bilbo was firmly regretting joining in on the whole business, and he didn’t think it was much of an exaggeration to say that the others were feeling the same way, given that he was hardly the only one complaining about it! In fact, he and Dori had got over their initial awkwardness in commiserating over the misery of the constant “drizzle.”

A “drizzle,” Gandalf called it. Humph! Bilbo had seen plenty of “drizzles” in his life, all of them rather pleasant, and this certainly did not qualify!

He’d tried calling on his power multiple times in the last few days, but apparently a request for a bloody umbrella wasn’t urgent enough or _something_ , because no names had come to him, and no umbrellas or cloaks or hats.

“Not like that, brother!”

He looked up disinterestedly from his sour contemplation of his sodden trousers. They were all huddled beneath the boughs of a small grove of pine trees, the driest place they could find — which was to say, not very dry at all. Days of rain combined with the wind had conspired to make this pitiful shelter more than a little damp. Occasional fat drops of collected rain dripped from the higher boughs, splattering on unsuspecting heads or necks.

Even Gandalf was put out about it all, if Bilbo wasn’t very much mistaken, sitting on the opposite side of the tree trunks from the rest of them and gnawing on the end of his pipe with a distinctly grumpy expression. Why a wizard who could make fantastical fireworks couldn’t light a simple campfire was beyond him. Or perhaps Gandalf was quite sensibly avoiding the squabbling of Óin and Glóin!

“Don’t tell me what to do!” Glóin growled back at his brother’s admonishment. “I know well enough how to start a fire, thank you!”

“If that was so, you’d have lit one already, and we haven’t had a single spark!” Óin shouted back, although that was partially a symptom of his hearing loss, Bilbo was learning, and not always a sign that his dander was up.

Glóin threw down one of the sticks he was holding and raised a finger, but Thorin cut in before he could start.

“That’s enough!” Thorin bellowed. “I don’t see how arguing is getting the fire lit!”

_He_ was grumpier than Bilbo had ever seen him, but even from the short period Bilbo had known him, he already knew it wasn’t because of the rain. Obviously it wasn’t _comfortable_ for Thorin, but other than occasionally wringing out his hair or his shirt with an irritated expression, it didn’t seem to bother him as much as it bothered everyone else. No, he was definitely extra grumpy because of the brothers fighting. Bilbo had already observed that any sign of infighting amongst his Company bothered Thorin — shouting matches were guaranteed to get him involved, putting an immediate stop to it before it could escalate any further and mediating if necessary.

It was nice, actually. Besides saving Bilbo’s ears from the assault of dwarvish shouting, it was a mark of good leadership. He didn’t know Thorin well at all yet, but he could certainly respect and admire that.

The others obviously respected it, too. Even now, as angry and uncomfortable and out of sorts as both of them were, Óin and Glóin immediately abandoned their argument and got back to working away at trying to get a fire lit, without a single sour look or mutter for Thorin’s interference.

It was no use, of course. All of them could see that — well, all of them but Óin, Glóin, and Thorin, apparently. The wood was too wet, and the constant deluge of the past several days meant there was no hope of finding any dry.

Still, there was nothing better for them to do, either, Bilbo thought morosely, returning to staring at his knees, tucking his hands a little more firmly into his armpits. They were too wet and cold and miserable to sleep, and Fíli and Kíli were on lookout duty, so the options were sit and “rest” as best they could or attempt to do something useful. It was too wet for most pursuits, so why not the futile hope of having a fire to warm themselves? Bilbo had no better suggestions, and so he kept his peace.

Although, it could be worth a try. Even wet wood would burn, with a great deal of effort. It would smoke horribly and be prone to going out, but it was getting it going in the first place that was the trouble. All that work would be worth it if they could all get just a little warm and heat their rations a little — it would cheer all of them up just a bit! If only there was something they could use to get that first spark…. Everything they had with them was wet.

Bilbo felt the glowing warmth in his chest and the tingling sensation on his tongue and sighed with relief. The power would work this time! Why now and not when he wanted a _bloody umbrella_ , well, that was the trouble with it — too unreliable and flighty, not at all hobbitish! Still, he very eagerly let the words tumble out in a mumble, his hands spread open in his lap to receive whatever would appear in response to his invocation.

“What would Cousin Flambard do?” he said quickly and lowly, hoping the dwarves wouldn’t hear — and then nearly snorted. Flambard, of all people! His _least_ sensible cousin, of course!

And sure enough, he got a handful of dried orange peels. What use was _that_? Were they meant to eat them? Sodding Flambard!

Rolling his eyes and shaking his head angrily, Bilbo nonetheless carefully shielded the orange peels from the rain. They were the only thing that _was_ dry at the moment, and he’d like to keep them that way long enough to get them to Óin and Glóin! Hopefully one of them would know what use his wild Took cousin would have had for a bunch of old peels!

“Ahem.”

The dwarves didn’t look up or change expression at all.

Bilbo sighed. “Excuse me!”

Óin still didn’t look up, but that really wasn’t surprising.

Glóin did, though, glaring at him with one eye squinted. It was a rather intimidating expression, actually. “Eh? What do ye want?”

He opened his hand enough for them to see the orange peels. “I just thought — perhaps these might help?”

Glóin’s expression transformed immediately into one of hope. “Where did ye get those? And they’re _dry_!” He elbowed his brother. “Óin, look, look!”

“I, er — ate an orange earlier on the road and forgot to throw the peels away,” Bilbo blurted quickly.

It wasn’t done, outside the Shire. Bilbo was sure Gandalf knew — what didn’t Gandalf know? — but hobbits simply didn’t discuss their oddity with outsiders. It was passed off as chance, a bit of good fortune, nothing more. They gained a reputation for being particularly lucky, and didn’t _lose_ their reputations for being steadfast, reasonable, reliable folk that way. No need for anyone else to know about this fickle gift of theirs! It was hardly their fault, of course, that it was so contrary and downright puzzling at times, but others might not see it that way — might begin to view their sensible, stolid people as a spiteful and tricky lot, and that would be a miserable fate to all hobbits. Even the Tooks and Brandybucks, who were wilder than most, didn’t want to be seen as some sort of prankster fiends!

The dwarves either didn’t notice or didn’t care about Bilbo’s nerves on the subject.

“Well, isn’t that a spot of luck!” Glóin crowed, clapping Bilbo on the back so hard he nearly dropped the peels.

Óin took them from him before disaster could occur and they began working their flints over them. Much to Bilbo’s amazement, the dried peels caught fire immediately once a single spark hit them, quickly turning to a small blaze. Well, that certainly explained how Cousin Flambard had set fire to the livery once with nothing more than an orange and magnifying glass when they were tweens!

Óin and Glóin cheered and began working diligently to feed the little flames before they burnt themselves out. Dori and Bombur shouldered Bilbo out of the way — not cruelly, just hurriedly — in order to help, so Bilbo returned to his spot, glad that his part was over.

Only, once he sat back against the tree trunk with a sigh, he found Thorin sitting right next to him, regarding him with narrowed eyes.

“Bah!” Bilbo cried out, and fell over.

Thorin didn’t speak until he’d righted himself and was contemplating giving their leader a good scolding for sneaking up on unsuspecting people!

“I never saw you eating any oranges,” Thorin said suspiciously, before Bilbo could get started.

Bilbo felt a moment of panic but forcibly ground it to a halt. Thorin didn’t _know_ anything, and he was _always_ suspicious of Bilbo — well, and Gandalf, but Bilbo thought that was a bit more fair. Gandalf was fond of keeping important things to himself.

He shot Thorin a cool look. “I wasn’t aware you were monitoring my eating habits so closely.”

That worked — Thorin’s face went a little red and he puffed up, his muscles going a bit rigid.

“I’m not!” he barked, and stomped off to go mutter into Dwalin’s ear.

Bilbo breathed a sigh of relief and returned his attention to the busy dwarves trying to get a healthy burn going. It looked like they almost had it, and soon they would all have something hot to eat! The idea alone was _blissful_ , and Bilbo felt quite a bit happier already.

Looking around, he was gladdened to see that — Thorin and Dwalin aside — all of the rest of the Company looked happier, too. The ones who weren’t helping were gathering the food for heating and things that needed drying for hanging above the fire once it was going, their faces lighter and their eyes bright.

Gandalf was twinkling at Bilbo in that knowing way he had, but Bilbo was pleased enough not to care. Let the wizard have his riddles! At least Bilbo had managed to finally do some good for the Company. That, too, made him feel much better. It may still be raining buckets, but the night looked to be the first in days that wasn’t _completely_ miserable.

Though he inwardly swore that he wouldn’t call himself truly happy until the blasted rain stopped long enough for him to get good and dry again!


	2. If you can't get out of a jam...

Bilbo really wasn’t sure what the worst part of all of this was. There was the stench and itch of the sack he was stuffed into, the dwarf foot digging into his upper back, the fact that he was covered in troll snot, or — oh, yes, the _trolls intent on eating them_. Even Thorin’s glare burning holes in his scalp couldn’t quite compete with the _threat of imminent eating_. Bilbo was resolved to tell him so as soon as they got out of this mess.

Because they _would_ get out of this mess, or he wasn’t a Baggins! He wasn’t about to die by becoming a troll’s palate cleanser, no siree! He fully intended to die at the ripe old age of 102, warm and snug in his bed, after finishing off a good book and a delicious meal — _not_ covered in troll snot and horribly uncomfortable and only middle-aged.

Not to mention that he felt more than a little responsible for the dwarves being involved. Yes, he’d been trying to fetch the ponies, and he would have felt horrible leaving the poor things to their fates, but — well, he really could have chosen not to listen to Fíli and Kíli. He could have gone and told Thorin despite their protests. And after that, he could have not been captured. Twice.

His pride was smarting more than a bit over that. Going unnoticed was his _thing_! Being a hobbit, it was his _only_ thing, besides serving an afternoon tea spread that put Big Folk to shame and having an innate ability to know when it was a mealtime. And yet, here he was, having failed at not being spotted by trolls _twice in a row_. It was shameful. He had a lot to make up for, both with the dwarves and with his own bruised ego.

Because he did have _one_ other talent. His chest was already warm and his tongue tingling, so for _once_ it was cooperating with him — he just needed to get his hand free.

“Will you stop _wriggling_?” Kíli whined.

Ah, so that wasn’t Kíli’s foot in his back, then, as Kíli was apparently beside and slightly behind him.

“No,” he grunted, too focused for anything more.

Kíli let out a groan like a child assigned a chore. “What’re you _doing_ , anyway?”

Bilbo sighed, aggravated. “Trying to get my hand loose.”

That put an end to all whining and moaning.

“Oh. Any luck?”

“No.”

Kíli fell silent, apparently content to let him continue trying. That was just fine, as Bilbo wasn’t sure why Kíli was picking on _him_ , anyway! The others were wriggling around just as much, if not more, than he was! Bombur was trying to use his bulk to bust the seams of his sack, from the look of his rolling, lolloping motions, and Thorin was actually trying to gnaw through the knot holding his sack shut. Bilbo highly doubted his teeth were sharp enough for that, but he was in no position to criticise.

“A-ha!” he said quietly, so as not to raise suspicion, but no less triumphantly.

“You got it free?” Kíli asked just as quietly, but in an eager, excited rush.

Bilbo held his hand out and wiggled his fingers to display that yes, obviously — and then quickly tried to pull it out of sight. He’d been holding the proper words at bay for far too long, and now that it was possible to use them, he couldn’t hold them back.

“What would Adalbert Took do?” he blurted, and then nearly groaned — two Tooks in a row! It was just unfair!

And the… _thing_ that appeared in his hand was nowhere near what he’d been hoping for. He’d been hoping for a knife or a pair of clippers, perhaps — something sharp he could use to saw through the ropes tying the sacks on each of them until enough dwarves were free to try fighting the trolls again.

This was certainly not that. It was deceptively small, innocuous in appearance, but even as Bilbo looked at it, it began to hiss and smoke.

He immediately hurled it as far as he could — there’d be no getting the smell out of his palm for _months_ if it erupted there!

Because of course, it was a stink bomb. It was a specialty of his cousin’s. Adalbert had ruined so many occasions with his smelly pranks that when he got married, his wife-to-be tied mittens around his hands the night before so he couldn’t make any of the bombs overnight and set them off at the wedding. Since then, they mysteriously only made appearances at occasions where his wife was not present, so apparently the only nose she was worried about was her own.

It didn’t take long at all for the awful smell to spread. Bilbo’s eyes watered at the stench, too much for him to be able to see, but he could hear the dwarves hacking and coughing and sputtering.

“Mahal save us!” Glóin cried out, before descending into a coughing fit.

“He has forsaken us,” Nori called back mournfully from the spit over the fire.

“That’s lovely, just what I wanted to smell before I die!” Bofur said, cheerful as ever, though the sarcasm was clear this time.

“What did you do that for?” Kíli demanded, sounding on the verge of tears, before resuming his own coughing.

“I’m sorry!” Bilbo wailed, because this was awful and he really, really hated his magic curse right now. Bofur was right — what a terrible thing to be his last smell in the world of the living! He’d have rather been sprayed by a skunk!

The trolls, however, were not put off at all. Rather the opposite, in fact. When some of the coughing subsided, he could hear them taking deep sniffs, sighing happily in between. Once he blinked his eyes clear, he saw that they’d stopped turning the spit, too.

Apparently, they _liked_ this atrocious smell, and Bilbo wasn’t sure whether he found their insistence on eating innocent dwarves and ponies more offensive or _that_.

They looked over when Bilbo apologised, their faces eager. His stomach dropped and he shivered with cold dread when they stomped over, but all they did was pull him to his feet and then crouch down a bit to look him in the face.

“ _You_ made that lovely smell?” said one of them — Bert, maybe? Or was it Bill?

“How did you do it?” said another.

“Can we get more?” said the one who’d sneezed on Bilbo.

“Erm,” said Bilbo, very intelligently.

“Och, come on now,” Bert-or-Bill said, apparently attempting to be charming, although quite frankly Bilbo had seen piles of dog poop that were more attractive. “You share your little secret, and we promise to kill you quickly.”

“A very tempting offer,” Bilbo said flatly, unimpressed.

“We could let you _go_ ,” the second one, the one who seemed like he wanted to be the world’s most disgusting chef, said brightly. “Eh? Give you a runnin’ headstart and everyfing — _after_ you tell us where we can get some of that.”

Bilbo made no effort to look any more impressed than he felt by such an offer. “I think your legs are quite a bit longer than mine, so the running headstart wouldn’t last very long.”

One of the dwarves kicked Bilbo in the back of the leg, but he ignored them. He was in the middle of the most idiotic, and potentially fatal, negotiation of his life. He didn’t have time for whatever they wanted, too!

The trolls were stumped by Bilbo’s counter for quite a few minutes, grumbling and shuffling and rubbing their chins.

“I know!” said Sneezer. “What if we promise to let you go and _not_ chase after you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous! I liked that smell, but I’m still _hungry_ , you know!” said Bert-or-Bill, smacking Sneezer in the arm for good measure.

“S’not a bad idea, actually,” said Chef Squirrel Dung, poking Bilbo in the stomach _very rudely_. “The little burrahobbit’s barely a mouthful, and we’ve got all these dwarves anyway. We can always catch him again tomorrow and eat him.”

That wasn’t a very appealing offer, either, but Bilbo had a new idea.

“The dwarves? You — you’re not really planning to _eat_ them?” he squeaked, mustering as much shock as he could.

“Yes,” said the trolls, in stupid unison.

Bilbo didn’t have to _pretend_ to look horrified, shaking his head. “Oh, dear — oh, my. No. No, I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Bert-or-Bill looked angry and Sneezer confused, but Chef Squirrel Dung was curious.

“Why not?”

Why not, indeed? Besides the fact that they were people — obviously _that_ didn’t matter to the trolls a bit, so appealing to the moral bankruptcy required to feast on fellow sentient creatures was a no-go. And trolls _liked_ gross things, but perhaps not something that might be catching.

“Because they’ve got parasites!” he burst out before the idea really registered in his brain.

Things descended into chaos rather quickly after that. Between one thing and another, the trolls spent quite a lot of time arguing amongst themselves and threatening Bilbo and worrying that they might have the parasites just from _touching_ the dwarves. Meanwhile, the dwarves had their own, much more orderly chaos: first, to cry out protests and denounce Bilbo, then to pause as his scheme caught on, and finally to complain loudly about their parasites and how painful and horrid they were.

Bilbo hated to think how it all might have ended if trolls weren’t turned to stone by the sunlight, but they were, and Gandalf, for all his other foibles, had excellent timing, and so all was well.

All right, not _entirely_ well. He was rather concerned about Kíli and Fíli suddenly huddling together, far from everyone else, and whispering back and forth while darting looks at Bilbo. That couldn’t be good. Kíli might have _seen_ , and that would be the end of Bilbo’s reputation!

Then there was also Thorin, who was staring at him quite a lot with narrow-eyed suspicion again. He came over shortly after he was fully dressed, politely ignoring Bilbo’s troll-snot smell. More than a bit dodgy, that. Bilbo would have to try to find a stream to wash in before he got some horrible disease, or perhaps a _real_ parasite.

“Where _did_ you get that stink bomb?” Thorin demanded, without beating around the bush at all.

Bilbo had actually been expecting something more along the lines of “Why, Mahal, why?!” so that threw him for a moment. The adrenaline was still pumping, though, his mind not quite powered down from the frantic leaping it had been doing to avoid getting eaten, and so he answered lightly and without much thought.

“I had it with me.”

“No, you didn’t,” Thorin argued. “You didn’t take anything with you from your pack.”

“It was in my pocket,” Bilbo said with a huff, and truth be told, a bit of a glare. There was only so much of a refusal to accept a blatant brushoff answer that any self-respecting hobbit could take. “Why do you know so much about what I have or haven’t taken from my pack, anyway?”

It wasn’t quite so surprising this time when Thorin went spectacularly pink. He huffed and puffed and stood up tall and finally growled, “I don’t!” With that proclamation, he stormed off again, apparently to try his luck at interrogating Gandalf instead.

Bilbo could have told him that was a fruitless endeavour, but then Thorin might have come back around to his original question, so he just heaved a sigh of relief and wandered off to help the others collect their scattered supplies.


	3. If you're being followed...

When Bilbo was but a young hobbit lad, barely as tall as the matured hay in the fields, he’d been jealous of another lad by the name of Tolman. Tolman was a bit older, and _miles_ more popular. Bilbo had a couple of friends, all relatives of his and not very close — more like partners in crime when the crime Bilbo had in mind was of interest to them, but nowhere to be found when he wanted to do something they didn’t care about.

Tolman never had that problem. Tolman was loud and bright and gregarious, and everyone always liked his ideas for games and wanted to be invited to play. The other fauntlings followed him like ducklings after their mother, hoping to be chosen. Bilbo watched them all pass him by and his tiny body had always filled with wistful envy, a longing to have his own following of devoted friends!

Adult Bilbo was sorry he’d ever wished for such a thing. Being followed around constantly was _irritating_.

“Must you?” Bilbo sighed, not bothering to look up from the flower he was examining this time.

Well, not visibly. He watched from the corner of his eye, but only because he didn’t want to be caught unawares if their plan was to tackle him or something. Since they had fled every time he confronted them — for about five minutes, anyway — he hadn’t figured out what exactly they were following him for. Obviously they wanted _something_ , though.

There was some scuffling, and then the two dwarves came out from behind the elf statue they’d been very unsuccessfully trying to hide behind, their hands behind their backs and extremely unconvincing innocent expressions on their faces.

“Oh, it’s _you_ , Bilbo!” Fíli said, as though he hadn’t known exactly who he was following. “So sorry! Didn’t see you there!”

“But now that we _have_ , do you mind if we join you?” Kíli added, sidling up to his opposite side.

Bilbo snorted. “Yes, please do. I’d rather you follow me around openly than continue falling into perfectly good rose bushes and dodging behind statues.”

Fíli had the grace to look a bit chagrined, but Kíli continued to try to play innocent even as his face reddened.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about! You must have us mixed up with two other dwarves,” he said with a very fake laugh.

Bilbo didn’t bother to hide what he thought of that line of bull, and Kíli wisely dropped it.

“So, you can make things pop out of thin air,” he said instead.

Bilbo’s stomach dropped. He’d been hoping Kíli hadn’t seen that!

“That’s a silly thing to say. What gave you that idea?” he asked hoarsely, only to inwardly curse at himself — apparently it was his turn to sound utterly unconvincing!

“Seeing it with my eyes,” Kíli responded blankly.

Bilbo swallowed. “Oh.”

The three of them stood there awkwardly for a moment, the two young dwarves shuffling their feet. Bilbo’s mind was racing — he didn’t know them well enough to know what he could bribe them with that would guarantee they’d keep their mouths shut. He hooked his thumbs in his pockets and cleared his throat a few times, but that didn’t help any ideas come to mind.

Finally, he nodded towards the garden path and they followed his lead. Kíli seemed to take it as an invitation to talk as they strolled together.

“So how long have you been able to do that?” he asked in an eager whisper. “Can you teach me? Where did you learn that?”

“I’ve always been able to do it,” Bilbo said, “but look, you can’t tell anyone, all right?”

No point in waiting to get that across, really. He just wished he had a pocket full of cookies right now or something. He was fairly certain that would work with these two just as well as it worked with the fauntlings in the Shire.

Fíli narrowed his eyes at him, looking at him as suspiciously as he had the moment he stepped into Bag End. “Why not?”

Bilbo gestured pointlessly, frustrated at his own inability to explain this, and sputtered a little bit. It wasn’t his fault, not really. He’d never _had_ to explain this before! Everyone in the Shire just _knew_! And they didn’t want anyone else to find out, so it wasn’t like there was a manual on what to do if someone who _didn’t_ know found out!

He was going to write one, he decided. As soon as he got home. He’d write out exactly what had and hadn’t worked, and what sorts of questions he was asked. It would help any Bree hobbits who happened to be spotted doing magic, if nothing else!

“I have my reputation to think of!” he finally managed, still gesturing rather wildly until he noticed and forced himself to tuck his hands back in the pockets of his waistcoat. “It’s a highly unreliable gift, you know — and often more of a curse than a gift, as I’m sure you noticed from the atrocious smell that nearly killed all of us!”

Kíli frowned. “You can only summon stink bombs? I was hoping for cake,” he said sadly.

Bilbo huffed. “No, I can summon more than stink bombs! I can summon lots of things — I just can’t _control_ what those things happen to be.”

Kíli brightened, probably because this didn’t rule out the possibility of cake, but Fíli looked thoughtful, tugging at his moustache braids for a moment.

“So you can’t just say, ‘I need a screwdriver,’ and have one appear in your hands?” he asked once he’d finished thinking it over.

Bilbo shook his head, more than a little relieved that at least _one_ of them seemed to get it. “No. It would be very useful and I wouldn’t complain a bit if that was how it worked! But no, I can’t even decide what words I get to say, let alone what appears as a result of those words. It just kind of pops out of me, and while it _does_ always end up being useful, it’s generally not in the most straightforward or preferable way. It’s more than a little annoying.”

“It sounds good to me,” Kíli said wistfully, probably thinking about cake again.

“Stink bomb,” Bilbo pointed out.

Fíli sidestepped both comments — it was possible he was the wisest dwarf of them all. “What _do_ you control about it, then?”

Bilbo shrugged. “Nothing.” He tilted his head in thought. “Actually, no, I control _one_ thing — how I deal with whatever it gives me. I can’t choose to call on it whenever I please, only when it feels like being available, and I can’t choose what it bestows, but it’s up to me figure out what to do with what it’s given to me and how it will help the current situation.”

That finally made Kíli stop looking wistful. Both dwarves looked confused and faintly irritated, which was really quite accurate for the whole thing, in Bilbo’s opinion!

“What good is it if it doesn’t even tell you _how_ whatever it gave you is supposed to help?” Kíli asked, wrinkling his nose. “What if it’s so off the wall that you can’t figure it out?”

“Exactly,” Bilbo sighed. “It’s more of a curse than a gift. But you can see how it doesn’t seem that way if you don’t know the details — that’s why I’d rather if you two kept what you know to yourself. The _last_ thing I want is for everyone to be depending on me to…I don’t know, magic up a dragon-killing weapon, only to find that instead I end up summoning a potato or something — if anything at all.”

“That makes sense,” Fíli agreed, and Bilbo tried not to feel touched when he nudged him with his shoulder in a companionable sort of way. “We won’t say anything, will we, Kíli?”

He shook his head mournfully. “No — I’d hate for anyone to be as disappointed as I am about the lack of cake.”

Oh, dear. He wasn’t getting past that any time soon, it seemed. Contrary to his own expectation, Bilbo didn’t feel annoyed by that — rather, a warm, fond sort of pity filled his middle, and highlighted the fact that he, too, was getting a bit peckish.

“Well, I can’t make one magically appear,” he said, patting Kíli’s arm, “but I did happen to find the kitchens earlier, and as long as we don’t make too much of a mess, I don’t see why the elves would object to us _baking_ a cake.”

Kíli brightened immediately, clasping his hands together like an excited faunt. “Could we really?”

“We don’t know how to make cake,” Fíli said doubtfully.

Bilbo linked his arms with both of theirs as best he could when they were a good deal bigger than he was, steering them back towards the house. “I will teach you how.”

They both cheered at that. Bilbo couldn’t help but smile. They tried to act so tough and mature when Thorin was around, so sometimes he forgot that they were really still boys at heart.

Unfortunately, they didn’t end up managing to not make a mess, but strangely, Bilbo found he didn’t really care how much the elves huffed and muttered. He’d had a great deal of fun with Fíli and Kíli. In fact, he might go so far as to say that messing up the elves’ kitchen and baking a lopsided cake with those two was the most fun he had the whole time they were in Rivendell.


	4. If your leader has been chewed on...

Bilbo wasn’t feeling particularly well as they stumbled and shuffled and clambered down the wide, rough steps of the giant rock pillar that Gandalf had informed them was called the “Carrock.” He’d amused himself for the first part of the journey down by trying to imagine what hobbits might have called it, if it was here hundreds of years ago when hobbits lived in these parts, but that amusement quickly wore thin under the exhaustion of constantly going down, down, down, in a gently circling fashion. They were so very high up, and they’d had nothing to eat or drink for ages, and it was all making him a bit dizzy and miserable.

Still, there was nothing for it — the only way to get anything to drink was to make it to the bottom, where there ran a wide, shallow river. Gandalf assured them that it was safe to drink from, and thinking of it was all that kept Bilbo moving sometimes, when he happened to look down and his head spun.

Getting something to eat was another matter entirely. Bilbo wasn’t very optimistic about it, in fact. All they had with them was what they’d managed to salvage from the goblin tunnels, which mostly meant a few water skins, weapons, and some flints and things that were tucked away in pockets and hadn’t been fished out by the goblins. Their rations had been in their packs, and those were long gone.

“Psst. Psst! Bilbo!”

He scowled and looked over his shoulder warily. Fíli and Kíli had been whispering again, and he was certain that it didn’t bode well.

“Can’t you… _you know_?” Kíli whispered when he saw he had Bilbo’s attention, gesturing vaguely.

Bilbo’s scowl deepened. “No — trust me, if I could, I would have already!”

He couldn’t think of a single thing that would help them get down any faster, and apparently his magic agreed, as his chest remained normal temperature and his tongue remained disappointingly normal — well, not _normal_ , exactly, but tasting and feeling like it was growing a layer of mold wasn’t a sign of an impending summoning.

“If you could what?”

Bilbo stiffened with alarm, turning with wide eyes. He hadn’t realised — he and the boys had dropped behind the bulk of the Company, Fíli and Kíli apparently by design, and himself just because he was going slowly so as not to meet his doom by tumbling off the side of the Carrock. Thorin must have grown concerned or he was counting the Company again, because he’d climbed back up to them while they were talking, and apparently heard at least Bilbo’s response.

His tongue cleaved unhelpfully to the roof of his mouth. He could out-riddle a gollum creature in the tunnels and talk a trio of trolls into confusion, but no words sprang to his mind or his lips. He could not tell his secret — and he could not lie to Thorin Oakenshield. All he could do, it seemed, was blink at him like a confused gopher.

“Go faster,” Kíli blurted.

Fíli slapped his brother on the back. “Yes! We were — we were trying to ask Bilbo to go faster without being rude….”

Thorin had only looked curious before, but he turned to Bilbo with a concerned expression at that. “Are you all right? Should one of us carry you down?”

Bilbo drew himself up instinctively. Really! The idea! He was a _Baggins_ , even as ragamuffin as he was at the moment!

“I should say not!” he scoffed indignantly. “Carry me down — I’m just fine, only being a bit careful at the moment. It’s a long way down, you know! Hobbits weren’t built for heights! But I’ll get there in my own time. The Shire is rather flatter than this, but I’ve walked greater distances. Did I tell you I made it all the way to Frogmorton once?”

He’d continued walking as he spoke, a part of him relaxing when Thorin accepted his nephews’ excuse easily and began to walk down at his side, listening attentively as Bilbo regaled him with stories of his walking holidays. Bilbo thought he even spied a small smile when he told him about the time he found an orphaned baby squirrel while out walking and brought it home and raised it until it was ready to go out on its own again.

Having an attentive audience made it easier to get down, strangely enough. He would have expected the distraction to slow him, but instead, the bottom was in sight almost before he knew it.

The last step down onto a lush carpet of green grass was much bigger than the other steps, so he had to turn around and sort of slide off of it to land on his feet, while the dwarves just jumped off and used their bulk and natural heaviness to keep from going anywhere on the landing. Bilbo wasn’t quite so lucky and wobbled when he landed. Fortunately, Thorin was right there — he grabbed Bilbo’s elbow to steady him, and gave him a brief smile and nod when Bilbo thanked him.

After that, it was down to business — namely, every single one of them wanted a long drink of water from the river, and after their thirst was quenched, a bath was likely on the agenda.

As much of a bath as it could be when they had nothing to take it with, Bilbo thought sadly. No soap or anything, and his magic still remained unhelpfully dormant, so it was back to scrubbing with sand. It worked, technically, but Bilbo swore he could still smell the trolls from time to time on his clothes, so he never truly _felt_ clean.

“I still have my bow,” Kíli said suddenly, startling Bilbo out of his sulk.

They’d all been lying around quietly, some of them even dozing, while they waited for their bodies and clothes to dry, out in the warm afternoon sun. Bilbo felt a bit guilty about wasting it by sulking about the horrid state of his clothing, suddenly, as they all looked so content, but then, he liked thinking about things that were making him grouchy, so he supposed it was fine, because he was happy in his own way, too, and not inflicting it on anyone by complaining about it out loud.

“Yes, you do,” Glóin agreed, clearly not seeing the point of that statement.

“I should try to hunt us up something to eat,” Kíli said, shrugging a little as though he thought this was obvious.

“No!” said Gandalf. It made Bilbo jump again, because Gandalf had left while they were bathing and he hadn’t heard him return. “No, there will be no hunting! Not on these lands.”

There was a chorus of arguments and protests, as Bilbo wasn’t the only one to have got his hopes up sky-high in the split second between Kíli’s suggestion and Gandalf’s reappearance! But at the end of it all, they had to unhappily concede, as nobody wanted their potential host to be murderously angry with them for killing one of his animal friends.

Bilbo sighed anyway, his stomach giving a forlorn growl. He patted it. “Yes, I know.”

His stomach didn’t seem to appreciate the sympathy.

Shortly thereafter, they all got up and started to dress, as Gandalf’s reminder that they had a destination to head for, and Thorin’s reminder that they had a pack of orcs to outrun, made lazing around in the sun much less appealing. Most of them even succeeded in dressing, Bilbo included.

Thorin did not.

“Give me my shirt back!” was the first Bilbo heard of it, Thorin’s bellow bringing his attention off of his empty, unhappy stomach and back to the dwarves just in time to see Dwalin bolting off into the trees with a bundle of cloth. Thorin made to go after him, only to stop, howling in dismay, when he stepped on a very sharp-looking rock.

“He’ll give you your shirt back when you sit still, laddie!” Óin hollered at him, grabbing his elbow as though to haul him back over to the rock that most of them had used to sit on for putting their boots back on.

Thorin hadn’t got that far yet. He was wearing his underpants at least, thank goodness, though pants of dwarvish make were different from hobbitish ones — rather more revealing in the back end region, Bilbo noted, his face hot — but Dwalin seemed to have made off with the rest of his clothing, as even his trousers were nowhere to be seen.

Ah, well, not all of it, as Bofur and Bifur were tossing one of Thorin’s boots back and forth like it was a ball.

Bilbo felt a twinge of sympathy for Thorin — he’d been the victim of this very same nasty prank by some cousins of his once! — and drifted closer to see if he could discern why the Company was doing such a thing to their beloved leader, and if there was anything he could do to help.

Thorin, meanwhile, had begrudgingly sat on the rock, his arms folded. “I don’t need to sit still, we need to get moving.”

“We can get moving _after_ these are looked at!” Óin growled back, poking a red, painful-looking mark on Thorin’s chest that Bilbo was rather ashamed he hadn’t noticed until then.

In fact, much of Thorin’s torso was bruised or punctured. The tooth marks from the warg weren’t life-threateningly deep, thanks to his armour, but Bilbo imagined that warg drool wasn’t exactly clean, and an infection out here in the wilderness would be very serious, indeed. He could see why Óin and Dwalin and the rest weren’t standing for Thorin being his usual stubborn self. He couldn’t afford to put himself off as he usually did, not with wounds like these!

Thorin looked all set to argue the point, and Óin looked ready to go to war with him if he did, so Bilbo interjected brightly, “Surely a few minutes won’t hurt, and Kíli is still having trouble with his boots anyway.”

Kíli obligingly made a mess of the laces on his boot and couldn’t seem to get his heel to pop in. Either that or he was legitimately having trouble, Bilbo wasn’t sure which.

Thorin eyed this situation with a deep-set, suspicious frown, but he harrumphed and lowered his arms to his sides so Óin could reach the wounds. Bilbo inwardly sighed with relief. Now Thorin could be properly looked after!

Or so he thought. It quickly became apparent, both through the lack of actual treatment and through Óin’s loud, angry grumbling, that Óin didn’t have anything he needed to help Thorin, no matter how much he needed it. Thorin didn’t seem to care, but Bilbo’s stomach turned with worry. How could they prevent infection if Óin didn’t even have any clean bandages to work with? He was sure that Óin would do the best he could, and that it would be quite a lot, as he obviously cared and was very knowledgeable! But even the greatest healers in the land couldn’t do much without anything to work with.

Surely, just this _once_ , his stupid bloody magic could be _useful_. Surely, just this _once_ , it could give him something he actually needed, without any stupid tricks or jokes or obscure solutions that he’d spend so long working out that it was nearly too late by the time he figured out what to do with them.

_Bandages,_ he thought hard, as his middle warmed up and his tongue began to tingle. _I just need some clean bandages, that’s all I ask!_

“What would Agnes Hornblower do?” he blurted as quietly as he could.

He was standing off to one side, and most of the dwarves were either looking at Thorin or busying themselves with other things. Only Fíli and Óin were looking Bilbo’s way when a whole medical bag popped into existence, directly on his arms instead of in his outstretched hands. Bilbo let out an uncomfortable “oof!” and fell backwards onto his bum, overbalanced by the sudden weight.

Óin’s eyes popped wide and he froze. Bilbo stared back at him, unsure what his own expression looked like. People just weren’t supposed to _know_ about this, and the “gift” couldn’t even manage to keep itself secret and subtle! He’d only asked for bandages! Óin was, bless him, _loud_ , and Bilbo was certain that any moment now, his secret would be bellowed for all to hear.

“Thank you, laddie! That’s just what I needed!” Óin half-shouted when he finally moved again, snatching the bag out of Bilbo’s arms and beginning to rummage through it with no ceremony.

Bilbo blinked at him, belatedly lowering his now-empty arms. When he looked at Fíli, he only shrugged, looking just as puzzled by this…non-reaction.

Ah, well — as strange as it was that Óin had no real reaction to something popping into existence in front of him other than to be thankful and start using it, it was much better than what he’d feared. Best not to look a gift horse in the mouth!

Thorin, on the other hand, was now frowning between the medical bag and Bilbo, very clearly confused.

“Where did you get that?” he asked slowly.

Bilbo’s mouth went dry. “Um.”

“From his coat, of course!” Kíli chirped helpfully.

This was much, much less believable than his previous helpful lie. That bag was nearly the size of Bilbo’s torso.

Thorin’s brows rose and he looked at the bag again. “I don’t think so.”

“Then where do you think I got it?” Bilbo asked weakly, forcing a little chuckle.

That prompted another round of blinking at the bag and then at Bilbo, and then at the bag again, and so on. He was _trying_ to work it out, but the obvious answer, “thin air,” obviously wasn’t on his list, and so Thorin was left to grope for answers that didn’t work. Bilbo felt guilty about it, but at the same time, he wasn’t about to tell him the _truth_. It was bad enough that two — no, _three_ , now! — dwarves knew about it from catching Bilbo in the act. To actually _tell_ someone? Willingly?! Even if Bilbo for some reason felt the desire to trash his _own_ reputation, he’d never be forgiven in the Shire for telling their secret.

A change of subject came in the form of Óin dabbing some ointment he’d located on Thorin’s wounds, beginning the process of cleaning. For a good long while, Thorin was too busy hissing and trying to flinch away from the stinging to puzzle over the mystery of the bag, much to Bilbo’s relief.

Well, and then _everyone_ was distracted, because Óin pulled out the roll of bandages.

Dwalin, who had returned from the trees now that Thorin was letting himself be tended, and Nori, who had finished dressing himself and was working on his hair, both promptly burst into badly-muffled snickers.

“No,” Thorin said, his expression caught somewhere between wide-eyed panic and twisting agony. “No, absolutely not.”

“The wounds will get infected without ’em, no question,” Óin said in a tone which brooked no argument. “This is what we got.”

He began putting on the bandages without waiting for further protests, and Dwalin and Nori’s snickers became full-blown belly laughs that they made no further attempt to muffle, only clutching at their guts. The rest of the Company, save Óin, who was concentrating, had started to smile and chuckle to themselves as well, shooting one another glances that they seemed to think were sly. Even _Gandalf_ was smirking with amusement!

Thorin whipped his head around, his hair fanning out, and pinned Bilbo with an accusatory stare. “ _Why_? _Why_ would hobbits have bandages like _these_?” he asked, his tone so plaintive that Bilbo felt truly sorry.

He hadn’t felt like laughing anyway, he just felt bad, because…well, the bandages were a pastel pink, embroidered with butterflies. It didn’t exactly suit Thorin, to put it mildly. Now he felt even worse, knowing that he’d inadvertently made Thorin a subject of amusement. Really, he would have expected better of _Gandalf_ , at the very least!

“Ah,” Bilbo began, and cleared his throat, shuffling his feet. “Sorry. It’s…. Well, injuries don’t happen often in the Shire. When they do, it’s generally the fauntlings. You know how children are, running about and climbing trees and such, and…. Anyway, when they _do_ get hurt, they tend to whine and fuss a bit about wearing bandages, even though they must, so we’ve found that making them colourful and cheerful tends to make them more proud of them — it’s something to show off to their friends, you know….”

He winced after he finished speaking, because that only made the Company laugh _more_ uproariously. Dwalin was lying on the ground, wheezing and wiping tears from his eyes.

“Kiddie bandages!” Nori howled, and had to lean against a tree stump to stay upright.

Bilbo frowned. “It’s not funny, you know.”

That, unsurprisingly, did not help, and Thorin suffered like a martyr until Óin was finished.

Only when Thorin was dressed again, his armour covering any trace of pink, did the Company settle down and begin to look more respectful again. Bilbo kept his thoughts on the matter to himself, but it troubled him greatly. He wasn’t resolved to speak to Thorin on the subject, but he kept turning it over in his mind as they began their journey again, headed for the house of the mysterious Beorn.

Oddly enough, it was Thorin who came to him, while they were following Gandalf through the rocky, scrubby forest.

“I owe you my thanks yet again, Master Baggins,” he said gravely, inclining his head. “I’m afraid I did not react in a very grateful manner, and I must offer you apology once again.”

Bilbo felt his face flame and almost instinctively he waved his hand. “Oh, no! That’s not necessary, I assure you. I understand completely — that was hardly an ideal solution.”

Thorin’s lips quirked and Bilbo’s heart skipped a beat.

“It’s true,” Thorin rumbled in agreement. “Pink with butterflies would…not have been my first choice, had I options to choose from.”

Bilbo grimaced when he overheard Kíli snickering behind them at the reminder.

Thorin seemed determined to ignore it this time. “However, I did _not_ have options to choose from, and it _was_ a solution. I had need, you provided. I thank you. Dying of an easily prevented infection in the Wild would be a rather humbling way to go,” he added with a jokingly large grimace of his own.

Bilbo couldn’t contain a grin. Thorin Oakenshield, _joking_! Joking with _him_! After all of the many ups and downs — mostly downs, thus far — of this adventure, this felt like much more of a triumph than it might have back in the Shire.

“That it would have,” he agreed amiably. “I must admit I’m relieved. I, too, saw it as an undesirable necessity. I would have rather given you something more…befitting.”

_Like a deep blue sash stitched with gold,_ he thought wistfully, only to give himself a mental shake. Where had such an inappropriate thought come from?! That was for a spouse or betrothed, to go about mentally dressing their beloved, not a hired burglar to a dwarf lord! It was all this _adventuring_ , no doubt, and his truly scandalous use of his magic so horribly often — making him reckless and forgetful of his manners! He’d need to mind himself more firmly from here on out.

Thorin nodded, blissfully unaware of how out of line Bilbo had been to him in the privacy of his own mind. “I noticed that you didn’t partake in the mirth at my expense,” he said delicately, his lips pulling down at the reminder. “And I wish to thank you for that, too.”

Bilbo waved a hand again — this was an easy, honest response to make. “There’s no need to thank me for that. I suppose this makes me in the minority, but I didn’t see how you being injured and in need of healing and bandages was any cause for laughter. Even if the only bandages available _were_ pink with butterflies. In the end, you were still injured, and that’s the important thing.”

Thorin only hummed, and he seemed to look Bilbo over with new eyes for a moment. It would have made Bilbo nervous, before, but Thorin was smiling warmly again, which was really quite a lovely look for him, he ought to do it more often.

“Still — you have my thanks all the same,” he said at last, very kindly, indeed, and they walked in companionable silence together for a good long way after that.


	5. If there is no escape...

Sneaking around was the _worst_.

No, really. Bilbo always thought it would be kind of neat — tiptoeing around, tricking even _elves_ , slipping right under their immortal noses and stealing their midnight snacks. It was exactly the sort of exciting, adventurous thing he would have killed to do when he was a young lad.

But it was _awful_. Literally every minute was terrifying, his chest tight with the fear that he’d been detected, that he’d be caught and strung up by his furry toes. The thing was, when _every_ minute was terrifying, terror became sort of dull, after a while. He was actually _bored_ of being scared, which was not really the sort of emotional gymnastics he would have ever imagined being possible, let alone actually happening to him.

And yet! Here he was, sliding around corners, holding his breath, whilst tall, graceful, rather cantankerous and unfriendly elves walked past, unsuspecting, wondering when or if he’d ever be able to get _out_ of here and do something else for a change.

The problem was that there didn’t seem to be any possible way out of this horrible place. Bilbo was starting to hate elves — or at the very least, their infinite capacity for good security. Would it really kill them to have an unguarded sewer or something?

Thorin was very amused when Bilbo vented that particular frustration to him, and even _more_ amused when Bilbo followed up by admitting that they’d had millennia to lose captives and find the holes in their security, so _of course_ they were good at it, but that didn’t mean Bilbo had to _like_ it. He very kindly didn’t laugh, though — he just smiled and patted Bilbo’s hand through the bars.

“I know you’ll get us out of here,” he said, which was very supportive, but not actually helpful in a material sense. Still, Bilbo appreciated it.

The rest of the Company was equally certain that Bilbo would find a way. Well, either that or they were desperate and clinging to Bilbo as their only possible hope. He wasn’t quite sure which, but the former was a much less depressing thought than the latter, so that was what he went with.

He liked to think all of them were becoming good friends — certainly, he was very fond of all of them, each in their own special ways. And he didn’t _think_ Fíli and Kíli would have kept his secret if they didn’t like him, or Bombur would have given him a share of the last crumbled honey cake he found in his pocket, or Dwalin lifted Bilbo up over every fallen tree trunk in their path. No, they were all definitely fond of him, too, and showed it each in their unique ways, so they weren’t grasping at straws by believing in him — they were being faithful and loyal, as Bilbo had come to understand that dwarves were, to those they cared for.

This mutual fondness — this friendship taking such strong root — it made Bilbo ever more determined to find a way to get them all out. They didn’t deserve this imprisonment. They hadn’t come all this way for nothing, his good and infuriating dwarves.

Plus he was just bloody tired of sneaking.

So, Bilbo decided it was time for a calculated act of desperation. He knew which guards had charge of the keys, the guard shifts and when they changed, who followed who, and he even knew of an escape route, if only he could get hold of the keys — _all_ of the necessary details had long been committed to his memory. He just didn’t have a means of _using_ that knowledge! There remained to him only one option, and he really, really didn’t want to use it.

Not to mention that he didn’t think he could keep it from his friends anymore. Particularly not Thorin. Lying to Thorin had long been impossible for him — keeping this secret from him felt heavier by the day. So what if it was all but forbidden in the Shire? So what if his reputation would be irreparably damaged by the revelation? By Bilbo’s reckoning, he was more likely to lose the dwarves’ hard-won friendship if he kept it from them for too long and they found out on their own than he was by coming cleaning after it was clear there was trust between them.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t terribly nervous about it. Being pressed for time really didn’t help, as he only had about twenty free and clear minutes between guard patrols.

But he was determined! So he placed himself as centrally between all of their cells as he could and cleared his throat.

Well, that didn’t get their attention, of course, because they were dwarves, so he gradually increased the volume of his efforts until at last Thorin bellowed that dwarvish word that made everyone be quiet every time.

Bilbo offered him a grateful nod and a quick smile before clearing his throat again. “Thank you.”

They all muttered some kind of response, but since none of them said the _same_ thing, it just sounded like “fnurglurbur,” and Bilbo disregarded it.

“Right, well,” he said, trying not to shuffle his feet. “I’m afraid I’ve run out of ideas, save one.”

That caused all of them to erupt in protests and disbelief — only Bilbo quickly raising his hand before they got any momentum quieted them down again.

“The thing is, the one idea I have left….” He paused, licking his lips. “It’s not…terribly reliable.”

Fíli and Kíli immediately perked up in their cells.

“You’re going to do _it_?” Kíli asked eagerly, gripping the bars and pressing his face against them to grin at Bilbo.

“Yeah, Bilbo, are you?” Fíli backed him up, showing little more restraint himself.

“Do what?” Glóin demanded blankly.

“I don’t think _that_ will work to get us out, lads,” Bofur said.

“Huh?” Ori piped up. “What’s he talking about?”

Dori had turned red and covered Ori’s ears.

Bilbo’s face felt hot, too. “No! No — _not_ — _that_ ,” he choked, and noted Thorin’s expression of relief with puzzled pleasure. He’d work out those reactions later. “He’s not talking about — what you think he’s talking about, Bofur.”

Bofur grinned. “Good. I don’t think you’ve got anything that’d impress any o’ the elves enough to bribe ’em into letting us go — no offence, Bilbo.”

He waved his hand, not able to look anyone in the face after _that_ comment. “None taken.” He had to clear his throat a few more times before he could continue. “No, what Kíli is referring to is, ah….” He bounced on his toes, turning his eyes skyward as he searched for words. “Well, it’s sort of a — no, it _is_ a hobbit secret.”

The atmosphere immediately sobered, as he’d half guessed that it would. Dwarves took secrets of their folk _extremely_ seriously, so it made sense that they would have respect for the secrets of other folk.

“Then how do _you_ know about it, Kíli?” Balin asked, shooting a disapproving glare at the wall between their cells. Kíli shrank as though he could sense it, even though he couldn’t see it.

“He and Fíli saw it, once, and asked me,” Bilbo interjected quickly, before anyone could start giving the boys a dressing-down. “They approached me privately, and respected my request to keep their knowledge to themselves.”

That smoothed the raised hackles of all of the dwarves, though Balin still gave the wall he shared with Kíli another baleful glance before he turned his attention fully back to Bilbo.

Thorin had remained utterly focused on Bilbo, and he was very solemn when he spoke. “You need not divulge the secrets of your people to us, Bilbo.”

Bilbo laced his fingers together and twisted them, trying not to fidget. “I know, but I want to.”

That brought a very queer sort of expression to Thorin’s face, but it seemed mostly positive, and he gave a little nod, so Bilbo took all of it as permission to go on as he pleased.

“As I said, it’s a very unreliable gift that we hobbits have,” he went on, his voice slightly choked despite the confidence Thorin’s acquiescence had given him. “We’re rather ashamed of it, actually. We’re much like you — a solid, forthright people. We believe in things being orderly and proper. This gift, though…. It’s the opposite of everything that we are. We try not to use it if we can avoid it, and we don’t speak of it. On this journey, I’ve used it quite a bit, though I didn’t want to…. It was just necessary. But relying on it is dangerous.”

“Dangerous?” Dwalin, who was always on guard for danger, piped up, clenching his hands into fists as though he could punch the magic into submission. “How’s that?”

Bilbo regretted that choice of words. He scratched the back of his head apologetically. “Ah. Well, not dangerous in the sense of requiring a fight.”

Dwalin looked disappointed, but he didn’t relax, either. “Then how’s it dangerous? It doesn’t _hurt_ you, does it?”

Bless his gruff soul, he was actually concerned. Bilbo smiled — he did have such good friends.

“No, it doesn’t hurt me,” he assured them all warmly. “The danger lies in learning to depend upon it. It _cannot_ be depended upon — I can’t stress that enough. The moment you start to depend on this ability to save you, it will let you down.”

“But you think we need it now?” Nori asked in his usual shrewd way, rubbing his lip thoughtfully. “How do you know it will work?”

“I don’t,” Bilbo admitted plainly, shrugging. “But I have no other choice. As I said, I have explored every other option.”

“So you’re just gonna wing it, then, see what happens?” Bofur asked curiously.

He shrugged again. “Basically, yes.”

Fíli and Kíli quietly cheered, though their attempt at fist-bumping each other was several feet shy.

“What _is_ this magic, exactly?” Thorin wondered, his head tilted and his eyes still soft with concern.

Bilbo cleared his throat, hooking his thumbs in the pockets of his waistcoat. “Well, ah — ahem, it’s a little hard to explain….”

“Bilbo gets a funny feeling from the magic when it’s willing to work and then he blurts out a question asking what one of his fellow hobbits would do in the situation, but he can’t control what hobbit he calls on,” Fíli said eagerly, apparently losing patience.

“Yeah, and he can’t control when it works, either,” Kíli added, bouncing a bit like an excited puppy. “And after he asks his question, _poof!_ Something just _appears_ , right in his hands!”

“And it’s always useful, but sometimes it’s hard to figure out how.”

“Yeah, like when it gave him orange peels and a stink bomb.”

“Although the bag of healing supplies was very straightforward.”

“Yes, that was very considerate of the magic.”

“The pink bandages were a nice touch, too.”

Bilbo shot them a mildly irritated glance and waved vaguely. “That about covers it, yes.”

Thorin’s expression had gone through several different phases, the most common of which was dawning comprehension. The rest of the Company was more vocal about it, adding “ _Oooooh_ ’s” and little gasps to Fíli and Kíli’s explanation.

“And you’re _sure_ it won’t hurt you?” Dori asked anxiously, finally distracted from tutting over Ori.

“Yeah, it won’t summon an oliphaunt to drop on you or naught like that?” Dwalin added, peering at him from under fiercely furrowed brow.

Bilbo shook his head. “Unless an oliphaunt would be useful in escaping our current predicament _and_ one of my fellow hobbits would think of it as a means of escape? Then no, it’s highly unlikely.”

“So when are you going to do it?” Glóin asked, gesturing with mild impatience.

All he could do then was throw up his hands. “When the magic feels like it, I guess?”

The dwarves all nodded and the entirety of the Company contemplated the floor for a moment.

“When will that be?”

Óin promptly thumped his brother, and that was that, for the time being. Bilbo would have preferred for it to work right then and there, too, but magic was a fickle, contrary beast. Unless you were a wizard, you couldn’t just call on it whenever you pleased — it called on _you_. Generally at the least convenient moment possible.

It was several days later, while Bilbo was visiting them again, that he finally felt his tongue start to tingle and his middle start to warm.

“Oh,” he said, sitting up from where he’d been leaning against Thorin’s cell door and putting his hands out.

Thorin sat up ramrod straight, too, gripping the bars. “Is it happening?” he asked, slightly loud with alarm.

The other dwarves immediately crowded around their cell doors, too, peering with mingling curiosity, excitement, and worry.

Bilbo couldn’t answer, he could only ask, “What would Jolly Cotton do?” in a voice that was strained from his efforts to keep quiet.

A big, heavy jug materialised in his outstretched hands. He barely managed to pull it into his chest before it hit the floor, clumsily compensating for the sudden weight. The jug _sloshed_ when he moved it, even though the whole point of keeping it from hitting the floor was to keep it quiet. Still, that was better than a big crash, he supposed.

It took him a moment to realise what it really was he was holding.

“Cotton brew ale?” he said in disbelief.

He could smell it even through the cork.

The dwarves perked up considerably.

“Ale?” Nori said, grinning.

“You don’t suppose being drunk would help us escape, do you?” Bofur asked, licking his lips.

Bilbo shot him a flat look. “Do I think that a group of loud, inebriated dwarves shouting and singing and challenging everyone around them to drinking contests or fisticuffs would aid in our attempt to _sneak_ out of this impenetrable fortress?”

The dwarves blinked at him, waiting.

“No,” he said with a huff. “No, I do not.”

There was a chorus of disappointed groans, but Bofur remained hopeful.

“Ye don’t think a little sip would _hurt_ , though, do you?”

Bilbo frowned at the jug. “I honestly don’t know _what_ I’m supposed to do with it. It’s strong stuff — not as potent as the Gamgees’ secret homebrew, but stronger than any Mannish ale you’ll find — but I don’t think it would melt the bars.”

“Doubtful,” Thorin agreed.

“Even dwarvish ale can’t do that,” Nori added, with the air of someone who knew from experience.

Bilbo hummed. “I’m not even sure how this compares with dwarvish ale, to be honest. We hear a bit about the drinks set out by Men, being so close to Bree and all, with some hobbits even living there, brave souls! So I feel I have some authority, at least through enough hearsay, to confirm that this is much stronger than Mannish ales and meads — but since I’ve no idea how Mannish ales and meads compare with dwarvish or elvish ones, that doesn’t help. Of course, I could be missing the point altogether and it’s not about the strength at all.”

Fíli shook his head, tugging at one of his moustache braids, his brow furrowed. “No, no — I think you might be on to something. You’ve said that what you need is to distract the guards long enough to nab the keys and get us to your planned escape route, right?”

Bilbo nodded — slightly nervously, as he was evading any details about what his escape route actually _was_. He was aware that the dwarves weren’t going to be happy about being rammed into barrels.

“Well, what’s more distracting than being drunk?” Fíli said, spreading his hands.

_Huh._ That was actually…very smart.

Still, Bilbo frowned at the jug again. “But I thought elvish wine was supposedly the most potent of all the alcohol anyone can get? Shouldn’t they have some kind of alcohol tolerance?”

Thorin scoffed. “It’s the oldest, since they can age it for thousands of years if they want to, but that doesn’t make it potent.”

Dwalin and Bofur and Glóin agreed heartily, but Bilbo couldn’t help but remain skeptical. He didn’t doubt that _they_ believed what they were saying, but given how much they disliked the elves and how proud they were of their own people, he thought it fair to consider their opinions slightly biased.

“It can’t hurt to try, can it?” Kíli said philosophically.

Well, that was certainly true. It wasn’t like he had any better ideas. And — unpleasant though it usually was, the magic hadn’t let him down yet. It always got him through, even if he wasn’t particularly pleased with _how_.

The elven guards having hangovers wasn’t really _dis_ pleasing at this point, admittedly.

“Right,” said Bilbo, and struggled to his feet, hugging the big jug. “Time to find out how hobbit ale stands up to elvish wine.”

…Pretty well, as it turned out. Bilbo had sat waiting in the shadows for about an hour while they chugged their free ale, laughing about how it would be unlikely to take the edge off and merrily challenging one another to drinking games. By the end of the hour, the previous shift of guards and the incoming shift were all slumped or splayed around the guardroom, snoring.

It was ridiculously simple to tiptoe between them and “liberate” the keys from them.

The dwarves cheered when he appeared before them again, jingling the keys.

“It worked!” Kíli cried triumphantly.

“Like a charm,” Bilbo said, probably a little more smugly than he would have if he wasn’t in such anti-elf company.

The dwarves sniggered and scoffed at the elves’ lack of stamina, jostling and slapping each other good-naturedly as soon as they were free of their cells and able to exchange such friendly gestures.

Bilbo hated to think how they’d react once they realised he meant to stuff them in barrels in order to smuggle them out — but for now, he’d take the win!


	6. If your leader has gone mad...

“Oh, dear. Oh _dear oh dear oh dear_.”

“Keep yer shirt on, laddie,” Dwalin said, in what passed for a patient voice with him.

Bilbo scoffed, stopping in his pacing to stare at Dwalin. “Keep my shirt on! Is that the best you can do?!”

Dwalin rolled his eyes and looked away, shifting his grip on his axe, but he didn’t interrupt, perhaps aware that Bilbo needed to let off a little steam. Or perhaps he just didn’t care, since even Bilbo’s biggest tantrums were nothing compared with an enraged dwarf. He’d certainly never swung an axe at anyone in anger! Or for any other reason, for that matter.

“Thorin is over there _counting coins_ and cackling like a _lunatic_ while the threat of _war_ hangs on our doorstep, and there’s _nothing_ we can seem to do to get through to him!” Bilbo went on, though he made an effort to keep his voice down — no need to poke the dragon. “So no, I will not keep my shirt on, thank you!” He paused. “All right, yes, I will keep my shirt on, because it’s cold, but I will not stay calm!”

Dwalin’s lips twitched like he was tempted to laugh, but to his credit, he did not. “I just don’t see the point in getting so worked up when you said it yerself — there’s nothin’ we can do.”

His face flickered, then. Dwalin generally glared all the time — he had happy glares right along with the angry or disappointed glares, but to Bilbo’s eye, he was always glaring. That expression that flitted by so quickly wasn’t a glare at all. It was something like heartbreak.

That calmed Bilbo down faster than any words. He unfolded his arms, sighing.

“Is there…anything we haven’t tried?” he asked in a gentler tone.

Dwalin didn’t deserve to get the brunt of his wrath. They were all hurting and heartsick over this.

He shrugged a little, shifting his axe so that the end rested on the floor beside him. “Not that I can think of, nor Balin. Talking hasn’t worked. Challenging him to a spar didn’t work, it only seemed to make him more anxious to go to war,” Dwalin added bitterly. “Even ignoring him seems to suit him — gives him more time with his gold.”

It might not have seemed alarming to anyone else, but Bilbo understood the gravity of that. Thorin didn’t like being ignored, under normal circumstances. Giving him the cold shoulder was often the quickest way to get him to stop giving _you_ the cold shoulder after an argument so he’d talk about it.

Sparring with Dwalin normally calmed him, though it was always invigorating in its own way — usually it seemed to clear his head even if it got his body energised.

And talking…well, Bilbo had tried that, too, right along with Balin and Dwalin, and while Thorin could normally be reasoned with after one found the right words to explain a problem to him, once it made _sense_ to him, now there were no “right words.” He was fully, madly convinced of his own righteousness, of the utmost importance of the gold over everything else, and no one could say anything to convince him otherwise.

So what else was there to be done? What could _possibly_ shake the hold of the sickness?

At that thought, Bilbo’s middle began to feel warm and his tongue began to tingle.

“Oh, no,” he moaned.

Dwalin’s eyes snapped to him and he sat up straight. “What is it? Is it yer gift?”

He didn’t seem to know whether to feel alarmed or pleased about that. Bilbo didn’t blame him, particularly after the Company had witnessed him “solving” their Lake-town problems by producing a dead rat from thin air. Granted, the Lake Men had been very eager to give them anything they wanted to get them on their way as quickly as possible after Bilbo convinced them that it was proof that the dwarves and himself carried plague with them, but their send-off had not been pleasant, and it went without saying that they weren’t welcome back even _before_ Smaug turned the town to cinder.

And the less said about the incident with the abacus, the better.

So both of them were more than a little nervous when Bilbo held out his hands.

“What would Hamfast Gamgee do?” he cried miserably.

An iron frying pan appeared in his hands, instantly weighing his arms down. It wasn’t nearly as heavy as the jug had been, but it still had some heft to it.

There was nothing particularly special about it. It was of nice hobbit make, naturally! But it wasn’t a magic frying pan, or decorated in gold, or anything that might indicate it as a possible solution.

Dwalin looked just as nonplussed as Bilbo felt, leaning on his axe and blinking at the frying pan. “Are ye meant to cook something for him, then?”

Bilbo huffed out an unhappy laugh. “With what? We don’t really have any food left.”

A few scraps from previous meals and some old jerky — that didn’t add up to anything worth taking Thorin’s mind off the gold by _any_ stretch of the imagination.

Bilbo frowned at the pan, lifting it closer to his face. “Maybe if I just show it to him?”

“What good will that do? It’s a pan,” Dwalin said blankly.

He shrugged, chuckling a tad hysterically. “I have no idea, but I haven’t the first clue what I’m supposed to do with it otherwise.”

Dwalin still didn’t look terribly convinced, but since he had no ideas at all, either, he followed Bilbo back to the treasury.

As they walked, Bilbo began to get a horrible, horrible thought, one that filled him from curly head to furry toes with dread.

The name he had called out before receiving the frying pan was Hamfast Gamgee. His gardener was an excellent hobbit — polite and respectful to all, friendly and generous, more than just skilled with plants of any kind, and a good chap to have around at a party, and not only because he tended to liven things up by bringing a keg of his own special homebrew. He was a gentle soul, too. Even slugs and rabbits and other garden pests were kindly escorted off the premises, set under a nice wild bush or shrub to live on instead of the garden.

But there was one thing Hamfast Gamgee absolutely could not abide, and that was squirrels. Squirrels in his garden, or any of the gardens entrusted to his care, were given a sound thumping by the swing of a frying pan, unless they were quick enough to dodge, which most of them were. Still, he seemed to feel no remorse for the squirrels that got that thump and went squealing and dizzy off into the bushes.

On one other occasion, when he was a tween and much less even-tempered than he was in adulthood, Hamfast had got into a row with one of the Miller boys, who’d stolen the tomatoes out of the Gamgees’ garden but refused to admit it or return them. Hamfast hadn’t actually hit the other lad with the frying pan, but he’d certainly put the fear in him that he _might_ , and the tomatoes were forthwith returned, with no other would-be thieves daring to cross into the Gamgee garden for many years, until after Hamfast had mellowed.

Bilbo didn’t want to threaten to hit Thorin with a frying pan. Even less so did he want to _actually_ hit him.

As infuriating as Thorin was being right now, it wasn’t his fault, and injuring him was the last thing Bilbo wanted to do. There was also the consideration that Dwalin would _kill him_ after he’d whacked Thorin with a frying pan.

So he tucked the thought away and put on a brave face as he went to present the frying pan to Thorin.

Thorin blinked at it, taking it from Bilbo and turning it this way and that so he could examine it from different angles.

“What is this?” he asked, but didn’t give Bilbo a chance to reply. “It isn’t gold,” he said dismissively, shoving the frying pan in Bilbo’s general direction and turning back to his treasure hoard, his eyes just as clouded as before.

Bilbo held the frying pan and tried not to think about that horrible, horrible thought.

He heard Dwalin’s sad, defeated sigh, and felt his own heart sinking. What else was there to do?

Thorin had turned away from him, engrossed in his gold. Bilbo was slightly above him, thanks to the uneven hills of treasure, giving him a perfect vantage of the crown of Thorin’s head.

_Oh, dear._ Bilbo turned the pan until he had both hands firmly around the handle, wincing. He did not want to do this, no, not at all. Surely he was wrong. Surely there was some other reason…. Surely he was meant to use the pan for its intended purpose?

But no magic, madness-curing dish came to mind, and he still had no ingredients to cook with.

He lifted the pan and squeezed his eyes shut, taking a deep breath. “This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you.”

“Hmm?” Thorin answered distractedly.

Bilbo swung the pan, feeling the impact up his arms as he made contact, a loud ringing echoing through the treasury as the iron of the pan connected with the gold of Thorin’s crown. He dropped it immediately, wringing his sore, vibrating hands, and opened his eyes just in time to see Thorin slump to the ground.

“Oh, dear,” he said miserably. “Oh, dear. What have I done? Why did it have to be Hamfast, of all people?”

He heard a choked noise and turned to see Dwalin standing rooted a few feet away, staring open-mouthed at Thorin, lying on the gold beside the frying pan. Dratted thing had a good-sized dent in it now.

Bilbo cleared his throat, gingerly approaching Thorin and leaning down. Much to his relief, there was no sign of blood, and Thorin’s pulse was strong when he dug through Thorin’s hair to find his neck.

“Erm,” he said, shifting uncomfortably. “I think he’ll be all right, we just need to get him to a bed….”

“You hit him with a frying pan!” Dwalin yelled, sounding a little hysterical himself, and still not moving other than to point at Thorin.

Well, there was no point in denying it, was there?

“Ah. Yes.”

Oddly, the immediate confession did not seem to help.

“You hit him!” Dwalin yelled again, pointing at Thorin again, then at the frying pan. “With that frying pan!”

Bilbo straightened up, flicking his fingers now that some of the tingling was abating. “I did. I believe we established that.”

The murderous rage had to descend any moment now, he was sure of it.

He was wrong.

“Why would you do that?!” Dwalin asked, still at a very loud volume — apparently he couldn’t stop yelling — but sounding as hurt as if Bilbo had stolen the last muffin at dinner.

“Well, I couldn’t think of anything else,” he said weakly.

“So you decided hitting him with the frying pan was a good plan?!”

His brows rose. “That about sums it up, yes.”

Dwalin finally seemed to unfreeze, but only so he could pace. “And what good did it do?! He’s unconscious, but that doesn’t mean he’s cured!” He froze again, looking horrified. “Wait, he _is_ just unconscious, right, you didn’t _murder_ him, did you?!”

Bilbo couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “I just told you, he’s going to be fine. He’s just unconscious, I promise. Does that make you feel better?”

He let out the kind of squawking, wordless protest that Bilbo himself usually let out, his arms flailing. “ _No_ , it doesn’t make me feel better!! You still _hit him_ with a _frying pan_!! Now he’s going to have a headache and be _angry_ with us, on top of being out of his gourd! He’ll have our heads for this, I hope you know, and it’s all your fault!”

Bilbo was very grateful that Thorin chose that moment to start to come round, rolling onto his side and moaning, one hand lifting to rub at the back of his head. He frowned when his hand touched the crown, pulling it off and tossing it aside with an annoyed expression before going back to rubbing the sore spot on his head. Bilbo couldn’t help but wince in sympathy.

Dwalin, on the other hand, looked like he didn’t dare breathe.

“What’s all the yelling about?” Thorin asked, his voice a little sleepy and confused. “Please keep it down, would you? I’ve got a terrible headache.”

Dwalin shot Bilbo an ugly look, but remained silent.

Bilbo licked his lips, hooking his thumbs in his pockets. “Erm, yes — sorry about that.”

Thorin opened his eyes at that, looking up at Bilbo with muddled bewilderment — but Bilbo couldn’t help it that his heart leapt, because Thorin’s eyes were _clear_.

“Why are you sorry? It’s not like you caused me to have a headache,” he said, pushing himself into a sitting position with a wince.

“Actually, he did,” Dwalin blurted. “He hit you with a frying pan.”

Bilbo glared at him — lousy traitor. He didn’t even have the decency to look guilty about it.

Thorin only looked more confused. “Why would Bilbo ever….”

He trailed off, his eyes going wide as he apparently registered for the first time where they were. Unlike the first time, though, he looked more befuddled than enthralled by the mountains of gold all around them.

“Well, you were rather, erm….”

Bilbo trailed off, too, scratching the back of his neck, but Dwalin piped up helpfully.

“You were out of your mind,” he said flatly, leaning on his axe.

Thorin looked between them like a lost lamb.

“Right,” Bilbo agreed. “You’d succumbed pretty hard to the dragon sickness, and nothing we did seemed to get through to you, so I…hit you over the head with a frying pan while your back was turned. I didn’t want to! But nothing else worked. It was a last resort!”

To his surprise, Thorin’s expression did not morph to anger. Instead, he licked his lips, his eyes going over the gold again, with suspicion this time.

“I see,” he said carefully. “It would seem I’ve missed quite a lot, as I don’t even remember getting inside Erebor. Last I knew we were looking for the keyhole.”

Dwalin blew out a breath. “That’s not helpful,” he groaned.

“Yes, we’re having a bit of a situation here,” Bilbo admitted with a grimace. “That’s part of why I had to hit you with the frying pan — time is kind of an issue. If we don’t get things resolved soon, we’re all probably going to die.”

Thorin’s eyes went wide again. “That’s not good.”

“No, not really.”

Thorin heaved himself to his feet, shedding his big heavy cloak after he noticed it. “All right, then, let’s go find the others — you can catch me up while we — whoa. Very dizzy.”

Dwalin finally stepped up, putting Thorin’s arm over his shoulders. “It’ll pass. We don’t have time to wait. There’s an army of elves parked outside.”

“Elves?!” Thorin gasped, plainly horrified. “You’re right, let’s move.”

Bilbo trotted alongside them as they made their way to the Gate, giving Thorin a speed version of events. He tried to only feel relief at Thorin’s recovered state, and not guilt over the way he’d had to bring it about.

Really, violence wasn’t the answer. Even his fickle magic ought to know better!

But at least Thorin was better now — hopefully they could stave off a war!


	7. If love is in the air...

Having a moment to breathe felt odd. The last few weeks had been nothing but a flurry of activity — first the battle against the hordes of orcs, then the _aftermath_ of the battle, and then the work to start putting Erebor and Dale back together enough for everyone to survive the winter. There hadn’t been a moment to pause — or if there had been, Bilbo had spent it asleep.

Fortunately, even while busier than he’d ever been in his life, he was among friends. Fíli and Kíli in particular had kept him company, either inviting him to join in whatever task they were doing or joining him in whatever task he’d taken on. Dori, Ori, and Nori were usually around if those two rascals weren’t, and while Bifur and Bofur were horrendously busy running teams in the underbelly of Erebor, checking the structural stability of the entire mountain starting at the very bottom and working their way up, they always made time to come and say hello every day, at some point, usually when lunch was served in the Gallery of Kings. That was when he saw Bombur, too, serving up lunch, although he occasionally saw Bombur when he chose to help out in the kitchens, too, and the two of them would brainstorm ways to make the meagre food sources stretch an inch farther.

None of them really seemed to care _what_ Bilbo did, as long as he was nearby. He didn’t see Óin and Glóin as often, but even they seemed to take comfort from his presence, gripping his shoulders and giving him smiles and gentle head-bumps, though they were all too exhausted for much talk, and wouldn’t have had much to say besides. All of them were just busy working, so there wasn’t much to talk about.

Actually, that was the first sign Bilbo had that things were starting to get better — Balin, who’d all but disappeared for these last few weeks, approached their table when they were all eating lunch together and asked Glóin if he’d _heard_. Bilbo had no idea which dwarves they were talking about, but the return of gossip was heartening. All of the dwarves got excited about it and joined in the frantic whispering, even Ori, who admitted that he didn’t have a clue who they were talking about, either. It was just something new and different. Bilbo didn’t take part, but he was very happy to see his friends perking up at last.

And now, today, Bilbo had gone looking for something to do and been told, for the first time in weeks, that there was nothing he could help with at the moment. He wasn’t a miner, so he couldn’t go help Bifur and Bofur there, and Bombur had all the help the kitchens could hold at the moment, as the recovery of most of the wounded from the battle meant there was suddenly of influx of dwarves ready and eager to do _anything_ after being forced to do nothing. The same went for Ori and the library, and Dori and the clothing supply, and all of the other places he’d been making himself useful of late.

Bilbo supposed he ought to be happy about it. A chance to rest ought to have been a welcome occurrence! Unfortunately, all it did was give him time to mope.

Yes, he was moping — he fully admitted it. And he felt he was justified! Who _wouldn’t_ mope, after the person they kind of, sort of, might have had feelings of a romantic nature for suddenly took to avoiding them? Particularly when that avoidance was preceded by Bilbo — well, hitting him with a frying pan. Even he could admit that wasn’t terribly romantic.

The hopeful part of him quietly pointed out that Thorin had likely been just as busy as everyone else, so it wasn’t actually avoiding him so much as being too busy to see him — but his more rational side was right there to point out that it hadn’t prevented Thorin from making time to visit the others, on occasion. Not daily, but they each _had_ spoken with him, more than once, since the battle.

Dwalin was avoiding him, too, and Bilbo knew very well why. He was still angry about the whole frying pan thing, so it stood to reason that Thorin, the person who’d actually been hit with it, was angry, too.

The biggest trouble with this moping, though, was that there was nowhere good to do it. It was too cold outside, so he couldn’t sit alone on the barren, wind-blown landscape like some tragic figure out of a novel unless he wanted to get frostbite, which he did not. Inside the mountain, it was…well, just too crowded. Every time he found a nice nook to curl up and feel sorry for himself, it ended up with a crowd of dwarves in it, repairing this or that, or looking for their own place to sit and have a break from working. The only abandoned parts of the mountain currently were the areas not yet declared safe, and again, Bilbo had no desire to die or become disfigured by his current melodramatic mood, so he steered well clear of those areas.

That left him wandering around, trying not to be stepped on or bumped into, with his hands jammed under his armpits and his pace hurried because of the constant stream of dwarves going to and fro, which would have run him over if he had _not_ hurried. It really didn’t _set the mood_ he was going for, and you couldn’t have a really good sulk and brood over your misfortunes if the mood wasn’t right. Still, he made sure his face was set into an appropriately sour expression.

“Is this a bad time?”

Bilbo nearly tripped over his own feet stopping. Thorin’s brow furrowed with concern, and rightly so — Bilbo hadn’t even seen him standing there at all, awaiting his approach. He might well have run into him without even knowing it was him! That kind of lack of awareness wasn’t like him, so obviously Thorin would be concerned. Bilbo felt a bit foolish for concentrating so hard on his moping, but he tried not to show it.

“A bad time?” he parroted, going for a casual tone that fell rather flat. “No, of course not! Why would it be?”

Thorin grimaced and gestured vaguely towards his own face. “You look angry. Or possibly like you have a stomach complaint.”

Bilbo’s face heated and he cleared his throat. “Ah.”

He shifted from foot to foot for a moment, trying to think of a way to ask what Thorin wanted without sounding like he wanted Thorin to leave. A passing dwarf nearly took him out with a long metal beam propped on one shoulder, which prompted Thorin to break the awkward silence instead. He reached out and hesitantly grabbed Bilbo’s sleeve, as though he was afraid to touch Bilbo too much.

“Let’s find somewhere quieter to talk, shall we?” he suggested.

Bilbo had _no_ idea where that might be, but he agreed anyway.

Thorin led him through the labyrinthine corridors. Bilbo was happy to follow, particularly since Thorin’s polite, measured greeting had given him some confidence that he wasn’t about to be berated or cast from the mountain. Although he’d already figured a banishment wasn’t going to happen — Thorin had promised from his sickbed after the battle that he would never send Bilbo away, after Bilbo came clean about the fact that the Arkenstone was in his pocket the whole time and admitted that he feared such a punishment, else he would have admitted it right away after Thorin was cured of the sickness. Dragon sickness aside, Thorin was true to his word, always.

And quite frankly, as horrible as it was, Bilbo knew what to do now if the dragon sickness ever came back. Dwalin would be prepared this time, so he’d no doubt have to skedaddle afterwards if he wanted to live, but at least they knew one thing that would work!

They finally arrived in the same quiet guardroom where Balin had once told him that the Arkenstone would make Thorin worse. Bilbo couldn’t say he was exactly happy to see it again. Given that it was still horribly dusty and Thorin’s bedroll was the only one here, apparently he wasn’t alone in that.

Thorin shrugged when he noticed Bilbo looking at his bedroll, laid out in the corner with a few odds and ends close to it.

“This is the only place I could find that wasn’t either packed to the gills or filled with…temptation,” he said uncomfortably, his eyes darting away with something like guilt.

Bilbo didn’t ask. It didn’t take a genius to work out that he meant gold. This room _was_ bare of it, for sure, and it seemed that none of the newcomers had felt safe about intruding on the king’s space, since this room had obviously _not_ become packed to the gills as well.

He just nodded instead. “It was a good choice. I’ve been sleeping in a closet in order to get some privacy.”

Thorin looked torn between horror and laughter until Bilbo chuckled. Only then did he relax a little, a small smile curling his lips at last.

“I hope we can remedy that situation before winter is over,” he reassured Bilbo nonetheless. “The safety teams are working night and day, so there should be more rooms that we know are safe soon.”

Bilbo nodded again, forcibly quelling the urge to fidget. “Yes, I’m sure it won’t take long.”

There was a pause in which it became apparent to Bilbo that Thorin didn’t quite know how to begin.

Well, this was as good an opportunity as any to say what had been on _his_ mind.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted, and cleared his throat when Thorin looked at him sharply. He tilted his head one way and then the other, losing the battle against his nervous fidgets. “For, well. Hitting you. With a frying pan. I know it’s not really an excuse, but I didn’t know what else to do. Nothing else was working, but hurting you was…. Well, it was the _last_ thing I ever wanted to do. Physically or otherwise.”

He stopped himself from babbling any more when his voice went husky, averting his gaze to the floor with a wince. That would hardly go down in history as the most eloquent apology ever made.

“I’m… _not_ sorry that you did it.”

Bilbo’s head snapped up again, and he’d never been more shocked to see Thorin smiling. “What?”

Thorin’s smile only grew, his head tilting down and his eyes going soft. “I’m not sorry. You brought me back to myself.”

“By hitting you with a frying pan,” Bilbo said incredulously.

“Now you sound like Dwalin,” Thorin joked. When Bilbo only blinked at him, he sobered. “It could have been much worse, Bilbo. Given how bad things were when you knocked me out, it _would_ have been much worse. We might not have survived. You did what you had to do to help not just me, but all of us, and I’m grateful you had the strength and the courage to do it.”

“Oh. That’s —” What could he say to that? Drat it, he’d never been good at accepting compliments…. “Ah, thank you. And hopefully I won’t need to do it ever again.”

“I’m going to do everything in my power to ensure it won’t be necessary,” he said solemnly, like a vow.

Silly dwarf, getting him so sentimental. He wiped his face on his sleeve and sniffed, wriggling his nose.

“So I suppose that rules out that theory,” he muttered to the ceiling.

Thorin shifted, frowning in confusion. “What theory?”

“Of why you’ve been avoiding me,” Bilbo said, as lightly as he could.

To his surprise, Thorin turned red. He was the one, now, avoiding eye contact and shuffling awkwardly.

It was ridiculously, unfairly adorable, and it made Bilbo want to grab him by the ears and pull him down for a kiss. Which was a horribly rude urge, Bilbo scolded himself. They’d never kissed before, and Thorin was unlikely to happily welcome such a gesture, particularly when it involved getting his ears manhandled.

“I _was_ avoiding you,” Thorin admitted sheepishly, scratching at his bearded chin. “But it wasn’t because of anything _you_ did.”

How could someone so regal and broody one minute be so adorable the next? Just unfair. Bilbo was seriously considering suing.

“Then why?” he asked, feeling a smile beginning to tug at his lips despite his efforts to look stern.

“I was embarrassed,” Thorin mumbled. Bilbo thought about making him repeat it, but the poor dear was having a hard enough time, so he refrained from teasing. “I acted badly, and I couldn’t bear to face you after…practically throwing myself at you,” he added, flushing even deeper red and looking as though he wanted the floor to open up and swallow him.

Unfortunately, Bilbo had no recollection of any Thorins being thrown his way. He searched his memory frantically, trying to recall when, exactly, Thorin had “thrown himself” at Bilbo. When Bilbo apologised for hiding the Arkenstone and Thorin promised Bilbo he could stay in Erebor for as long as he pleased, Thorin had been injured and pretty heavily dosed by Óin, so he’d been lying in bed the whole time and Bilbo had stayed over by the fire because his fingers and toes were threatening to fall off if he didn’t get them warm soon. No thrown Thorins at that point.

Nor any other time, really. Even when he’d grabbed Bilbo after giving him the mithril shirt and hauled him off to one side, that wasn’t really throwing himself anywhere.

And romantically speaking, the most that had ever happened between them was Bilbo realising, around the time that Smaug told him that the Arkenstone would drive Thorin mad, that he was rather desperately in love with the silly dwarf, and his inappropriate thoughts about kissing or snuggling him ever since. Definitely no thrown Thorins in _that_ sense, either, he thought with disappointment he couldn’t deny.

“I’m sorry, I’m afraid I’m a bit lost, here. When did you throw yourself at me or act badly?” he asked, rather bluntly, as a result.

He couldn’t seem to cushion it when he was just so terribly confused.

Thorin blinked at him, his lips parting. “During the sickness, of course!”

He looked as though the idea that Bilbo had no clue what he was talking about was the most shocking news he’d ever received.

Which was somewhat fair, Bilbo supposed. After all, he’d apparently spent all this time dwelling on his supposed embarrassing behaviour; it would be somewhat startling to realise that the “injured party” hadn’t _also_ spent that time dwelling on it.

“Ah, I believe you covered that already,” Bilbo said, flapping his hands in a helpless gesture.

Thorin had, indeed. In addition to promising that Bilbo could stay and telling him that no apology was necessary for hiding the Arkenstone, Thorin had already apologised for turning into a gold-obsessed warmongering tyrant during the sickness, and Bilbo had been quick to assure him that he hadn’t held it against him when he was clearly not in control of his own actions. So if _that_ was the “acting badly,” Thorin had already apologised, and this whole conversation was redundant and unnecessary.

Although it still didn’t explain the “throwing himself” bit.

“Well, yes, but I’m referring to specifics, rather than my general bad behaviour,” Thorin agreed, his face pained. “Are you _trying_ to make this more difficult? Must I spell it out?”

Bilbo shrugged, feeling ever more confused. “No, I’m not _trying_ to make it difficult. As I told you just now, hurting you is the last thing I’d ever want to do. I just genuinely don’t know what you’re referring to.”

Thorin softened at that. He sighed quietly, some of the redness fading from his face. He didn’t speak, however, he just gestured at Bilbo.

At Bilbo’s torso.

His coat.

No — beneath the coat.

Bilbo’s fingers slid over the cool metal rings and he blinked in surprise. “The mithril?”

“That’s the second most egregious incident,” Thorin said, the sheepish tone returning. “But there were others.”

Bilbo shook his head. “I still don’t understand — how was giving me armour acting badly or — or throwing yourself at me?” he choked out, feeling his own face turn hot at the words.

“It’s the type of gift given to announce that you’re courting the other person now,” Thorin said tightly, his hands clasped behind his back and his gaze firmly fastened on the ceiling. “Generally something flashy and expensive, something to be _worn_ , to display that fact to all.”

Bilbo wheezed, feeling as though the breath had been knocked out of him. He most definitely would have remembered Thorin asking if he would agree to a courtship!

“The second most egregious,” he said instead of addressing that at all. “What was the first most egregious?”

Thorin, it turned out, was exactly the shade of a Brandywine tomato when he went as red as he could go. “When I placed you at my left hand in the throne room.”

“Eh?”

“That’s where the king’s consort generally stands — _after_ the marriage has taken place.”

“Oh.”

“Yes.”

Bilbo considered that. It would seem that Thorin _had_ thrown himself at Bilbo, just not in ways Bilbo would understand. It did go a long way to explaining why Bofur kept burying his face in his hat and giggling, and Balin kept rubbing both hands over his face every time he saw Bilbo with Thorin, and Dwalin’s whole speech about hanging Bilbo up by his toes if he broke Thorin’s heart.

Actually, come to think of it, Bilbo should have been able to understand it, if he hadn’t been so concerned with Thorin being a few potatoes short of a bushel _and_ making sure that Thorin didn’t notice him mooning over him. Although, given the evidence, that wasn’t much of an excuse, at this point. The only way it could have been more obvious was if Thorin had grabbed him by _his_ ears and planted a kiss on him.

Speaking of kisses, though….

“So does that mean you wouldn’t terribly mind it if I kissed you right now?” Bilbo asked brightly.

Thorin blinked. And blinked again. “I beg your pardon?”

“Well, it’s just that I’ve wanted to ever since you started getting all shy and embarrassed,” Bilbo admitted, scuffing the floor with one foot. “You’re terribly cute when you do that, you know. All right, _technically_ I’ve wanted to kiss you for a lot longer than that, but for _today_ , that’s as long as it’s been. Okay, that’s a lie, too, it was actually this morning —”

“But — we aren’t actually courting,” Thorin said, still looking so sweetly lost. “How can you want to kiss me when I’ve been so presumptuous and improper? Wait, you want to kiss me?”

Ah, the penny had finally dropped. Much to Bilbo’s relief, Thorin immediately broke into the loveliest smile he’d ever seen, his eyes sparkling.

“I do, indeed,” Bilbo confirmed, much more confidently now that Thorin had moved on from blank bewilderment.

His chest warmed and his tongue tingled rather abruptly, but this time, Bilbo wasn’t alarmed. He had a good feeling about this. Perhaps it was finally payback after all of the horrible garbage the magic had put him through this year.

“And I may have a solution to the problem of us actually courting. What would the Old Took do, hopeless sap that he was?”

A bouquet of honey flowers appeared in his hand, their lovely fragrance immediately staving off some of the musty, stale smell of the guardroom.

“Among hobbits, if I bring you flowers and you accept them, we’re officially courting,” Bilbo said happily.

Thorin held out his hand at once. Bilbo smiled, sending a silent thanks to the magic this once, and handed the bouquet to Thorin. He accepted it with obvious pleasure, despite his lack of appreciation of flowers in general.

“There,” Bilbo said, putting his hands on his hips. “One problem solved. Any others?”

“None that I know of,” Thorin said, with a shy sort of smile that Bilbo hadn’t seen him wear before, but _liked_.

He gave a nod and a sniff. “Good, then. So how about that kiss?”

Thorin’s smile grew and he obligingly leaned down a bit, which was very considerate of him, given how tall he was.

Bilbo refrained from manhandling his ears. It was unnecessary at this point anyway. Instead he gently held Thorin’s face in both of his hands and leaned up until their lips met.

Thorin’s lips were very soft, even though his beard was scratchy and tickly. His breath smelled like fish and cabbage, which wasn’t surprising, given that was all any of them were eating these days. Bilbo was sure his own breath smelled like that, too. Thorin barely moved, and when he did, it was to press closer. Bilbo was tentative as well, since he’d never kissed anyone before.

As kisses went, it was probably one of the worst in history, on an objective scale. Bilbo didn’t care — it was everything he’d hoped it would be, and he wanted more kisses just like that. Given how Thorin hummed and gently rested his forehead against Bilbo’s when their lips parted, he seemed to feel the same way.

(End.)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> A note about comments - I love and appreciate every single one, but I've stopped replying to them recently (not consciously, but it happened), and I wanted to explain myself. I have recently returned to college to get my degree, and I'm still working full-time. I haven't had much mental energy left over! I feel terrible about that, and so I wanted to make sure you all know how much it still means to me, that I do see your words and appreciate them from the bottom of my heart. ❤ And if you are someone who doesn't comment, but still reads and enjoys, I see you and appreciate you, too. 🤗


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